Realist Theatre

I thought that realist theatre sounded interesting, mainly because I recognized the name of one of the plays we talked about in class, namely Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. As I looked at a couple of different websites about Realist plays I realized that I haven't seen or read any Realist dramatic production. I'm not entirely sure that I would like to, as it sounds as though most of them are quite sad and normally I like to absorb things that at least end happily. One site put out by the Northern Virginia Community College seemed particularly helpful. It said that the Realist movement started in France, (while Wikipedia said that it started in Russia so I'm not sure which to believe) during the 19th century, specifically 1860. It came about largely because of the changes in society and also started out to change society. The worker class was very poorly treated and had no rights, along with other minorities such as women. Many realist plays used satire to speak out against such help society to realize that many things about it were flawed, discrimination being a small part of the problem. It said that the different governments promised to do something about the terrible economic and social conditions but wouldn't really do anything. Ibsen's plays, for example, had to do with many social issues such as "euthanasia, war and business, the role of women and syphilis." The cite said that realism came to be founded on three basic principles:
"1.truth resides in material objects we perceived to all five senses; truth is verified through science
2.the scientific method—observation—would solve everything
3.human problems were the highest were home of science"
One of the reasons these are so focused on science is that Darwin's "The Origin of Species" was one of the things that spurred the realist movement. Interestingly enough, another take off of Darwin was something the richer people benefited from as well. The idea of Social Darwinism said that people like the Rockefeller's, Carnegie's and Van Buren's were at the top because they were meant to be. That, like with wild animals, people rose to the top due to natural selection. Contrarily, the realist movement was more about the common man.

Some of the play writes of Realist theatre were Alexandre Dumas fil, who wrote 'Camille' which was dramatized; Emile Augier; Henrik Ibsen whose plays included such titles as 'Ghosts,' 'Pillars of Society,' 'Hedda Gabbler,' and 'Dolls House;' George Bernard Shaw who wrote, 'Arms and the Man,' 'Mrs. Warren's Profession,' 'Major Barbara,' and 'Pygmalion;' and Anton Chekhov, who wrote 'The Seagulls,' Three Sisters,' and 'The Cherry Orchard." The play that sounded the most interesting to me was Pygmalion, which was the basis for My Fair Lady which is one of my favorite musicals and uncommonly funny. It says that Pygmalion "shows the transforming of a flower girl into a society woman, and exposes the phoniness of society." The part about the phoniness of society seems to describe realism really well. It says that George Bernard Shaw was "uncommon for his witty humor," so I don't expect that I could expect all Realist plays to be like My Fair Lady, but I think that I might be interested in seeing some of them just to get a better idea of what realism is.